New PAC to back judges on the left

Move counteracts recently formed conservative group

Published 10:00 pm, Friday, April 28, 2006

Washington voters may have seen the end of an era of mostly obscure, non-ideological election campaigns for the state's top judicial offices.

Reacting to the creation of a political action committee to elect conservative-leaning candidates to the state Supreme Court and other judicial posts, a coalition of mostly progressive organizations is forming a political committee of its own.

"What we are trying to do in a proactive manner is to assure that special interests that seek to undermine the impartiality of our justice system and seek to (promote) their own agenda by influencing the judiciary ... are not successful," Seattle attorney Ronald Ward said Friday.

Ward called it "a moderate coalition of organizations and individuals (who) have come together to assure and protect a fair and independent judiciary." He said it has taken pains "not to be affiliated with any issues or candidates or political parties."

"This is in direct response to the Constitutional Law PAC," the group established largely by conservatives and Republicans, said Lisa MacLean, a Seattle political consultant who is working for FairPAC. It is also concerned about heavy spending on behalf of conservative judicial candidates by the state's home-builders' lobby.

Both opposing camps include veterans of partisan politics. The trend could lead to greater use of traditional, partisan campaign tools in judicial races, as has been seen in high-spending court races in other states.

Each of the two PACs claims to include political moderates. Each says partisans and ideologues dominate the other side.

"We can point to a much more centrist agenda than (FairPAC) can," said Alex Hays, executive director and a board member of the Constitutional Law PAC, whose chairman is former Republican U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton. Hays termed FairPAC "a very politically motivated group."

The new PAC's supporters include such prominent Democrats as former Gov. Gary Locke, King County Executive Ron Sims and Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon. But it also includes Ruth Woo, a Seattle political veteran who has worked on the campaigns of Republicans and Democrats alike.

The founders of the Constitutional Law PAC include two former state Republican Party chairmen and gubernatorial candidates, Dale Foreman and Ken Eikenberry, although Hays said neither is currently on its board.

Hays said too few judicial elections are truly contested, most judgeships are filled by appointment, and some judges have admitted to him that "they believe that other judges punish attorneys who run for the court."

MacLean said the groups behind FairPAC aren't so interested in backing a particular slate of Supreme Court candidates as they are in opposing attempts by special-interest groups to defeat judicial incumbents who don't espouse a certain ideology.

"We're reaching out to persons certainly on both sides of the political aisle, to former justices, former judges, former bar association presidents," she said.

She said FairPAC wants to raise the public visibility of judicial campaigns, "to get across the idea that these races are as important as a race for governor or a race for state senator."

With the state's executive and legislative branches currently dominated by Democrats, MacLean said conservatives have realized it's cheaper to spend their money trying to buy control of a nine-member Supreme Court than to spend it on more expensive, competitive efforts to win control of the Legislature or the governorship.

Neither PAC has formally endorsed candidates yet. But the Constitutional Law PAC, which encouraged Johnson to run, is expected to endorse him. The Building Industry Association of Washington, or BIAW, of which Groen is an active member, is likely to back him and Johnson.

Although the Constitutional Law PAC had encouraged Groen to run for the Supreme Court, it wanted him to run against an incumbent other than Alexander, who has friends in the PAC.

In 2004, the BIAW and its affiliates helped elect Jim Johnson to the Supreme Court by pouring more than $225,000 into his campaign. Johnson outspent his opponent more than 3 to 1 and on the court has been a reliable defender of property rights -- a key issue for the home builders.

FairPAC is considered likely to endorse the court's incumbents this year. MacLean said some of its members have mixed feelings about some of the incumbents but believe they have little choice but to put aside their differences to thwart the aims of groups like the Constitutional Law PAC and the BIAW.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Robert Utter, who is honorary co-chairman of Owens' re-election campaign, has been a vocal critic of the national trend -- prevalent in a number of other states and now growing in Washington -- of politicizing state judicial elections.

Utter said he is "not a member nor have I been asked to join" FairPAC. But he said the history of judicial races in Texas, Ohio and elsewhere shows that "when a PAC gets involved in trying to recruit candidates who appear to be favorably disposed toward that PAC's point of view, there's always someone on the other side.

"It becomes an arms race in terms of dollars. Where it stops is hard to say."